Many areas-of-interest, such as museums, theme parks, zoos, archeological sites, or other educational or outdoor sightseeing locations, contain various featuresxe2x80x94or xe2x80x9cpoints-of-interestxe2x80x9dxe2x80x94suitable for showing to visitors. A point-of-interest, as used herein, may be a displayed article, a feature of an archeological or other outdoor site, or any similar feature or thing that a visitor may find of interest and wish to receive information about. The conventional approach for conducting tours of such areas-of-interest is primarily through human guides. When the guide reaches a point-of-interest, he or she delivers information concerning such point-of-interest to the group of visitors currently taking the tour. When the tour is over, the tour-takers often visit a gift shop containing souvenirs and books with information concerning the area-of-interest just seen.
The conventional approach to tour-taking has a number of drawbacks. First, timing restrictions are imposed, as the tours start at pre-specified times, and a pre-determined amount of time is devoted to each point-of-interest. Second, to receive information the participants must travel in a group and follow the tour guide. Third, the delivered information is typically not repeated for just one individual. Fourth, the tour is conducted in one or a few languages only, thus many times not meeting the needs of every individual. Fifth, the books offered by the gift shop are not customized to a given tour-taker""s specific interests; consequently they may have, for a particular person, more information than desired on one topic, and less information than desired on another topic. Sixth, such books are usually available only in a limited number of languages and hence do not address the needs of all potential visitors; indeed, even if the books are in print in many languages, making the books available to visitors in all such languages could require the gift shop to incur prohibitively-high inventory costs.
The invention relates to a system for automatically delivering information to a person. More particularly, the invention pertains to a system for delivering to a person informational content which depends upon the location of the person within an area covered by the system, such that the person can subsequently request previously-selected information in print form to be delivered through the system""s print-on-demand capability.
The related art consists of systems for automatically delivering exhibit-related information to tourists, as well as shopping cart systems designed to convey to shopping-related information and advertisements to users in a store. These references are described below.
The invention disclosed by Albukerk and Waytena in U.S. Pat. No. 5,929,848, INTERACTIVE PERSONAL INTERPRETIVE DEVICE AND SYSTEM FOR RETRIEVING INFORMATION ABOUT A PLURALITY OF OBJECTS, provides a location-dependent information delivery system for tour takers which relies upon a set of fixed signal-emitters to inform the users"" mobile units as to their present location with the area-of-interest. That system includes provision to the user of exhibit-related information in textual format, the ability to mark such text as the user is viewing it, and the ability to have the marked text printed out upon return of the mobile unit. The system of that invention, however, does not include an ability to store user interest levels relative to each point-of-interest for subsequent print on demand of a customized book whose contents may be materially differentxe2x80x94for example, more in-depth and/or of a pictorial naturexe2x80x94than the information delivered to the user during the tour.
Matsumoto and Yamauchi, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,461,371, EXHIBIT EXPLAINING SYSTEM ACTIVATED BY INFRARED SIGNALS, also disclose a system for delivering informational content regarding objects of interest to individual users via a mobile unit which detects and identifies a signal of a fixed base unit near the point-of-interest. The mobile unit of that invention includes a printing means as an alternate method of communicating the information to the user rather than via audio or graphic display. The invention disclosed therein does not include an ability to designate interest levels regarding specific points of interest for later print-on-demand of a customized book.
An apparatus disclosed by Malec and Moser in U.S. Pat. No. 4,973,952, SHOPPING CART DISPLAY SYSTEM, like the above two patents, includes a display responsive to trigger signals provided by transmitters associated with a particular location. As the title suggests, the display is mounted on a shopping cart. The display delivers to the shopper advertising media associated with the user""s location within the store. In one embodiment, the display includes a sensor for determining whether the information is displayed in the presence of a consumer, and a memory for storing all trigger signals received during a given shopping trip. The stored data is subsequently transmitted to a polling transceiver located at a point of sale register for later analysis.
Similar to the above, a portable device disclosed by Begum in Patent Cooperation Treaty Patent Application No. WO 91/14984//PCTIUS90/07128 xe2x80x94DEVICE FOR PROVIDING ADVERTISING TO SHOPPERS, accompanies a shopper during shopping in a store and displays advertising information and information regarding specials for products carried by the store. The advertising information is displayed periodically or in response to a trigger signal in the vicinity of the particular product concerned so a shopper receives the information as he or she approaches the product in question. In one embodiment, the device includes keys that a shopper can engage to determine the location of specific products.
The device of the present invention provides a system for conducting automatic tours by eliminating the need for a tour guide and for tour-takers to travel in groups. The invented system delivers independently to each person using it (hereinafter, xe2x80x9cuserxe2x80x9d) information associated with a point-of-interest or exhibited article when, and only when, the user equipped with a mobile unit of the invented system enters an area within which the point-of-interest or displayed article can be conveniently observed. The invented system also enables print-on-demand, typically at the book or gift shop associated with the area-of-interest, of a book customized to the user""s interests. Each user independently selects the topics to be included in such a customized book, as well as the amount of material and the level of detail for each selected topic.
The invented system comprises a set of fixed transceivers located near the points-of-interest which transmit modulated signals at a certain radio frequency (RF). The invented system additionally comprises a set of mobile units, one for each user. Each mobile unit is equipped with a transceiver, a data storage device and a listening device such as a pair of headphones. When a mobile unit recognizes the signal of a fixed transceiver, it plays back the appropriate information file to the user through the listening device. All information files thus played back to the user are stored on the mobile unit.
The invented system optionally stores and delivers general information or advertising messages when the user is not in the region of any of the fixed transceivers. This feature may be activated or deactivated by programming a microprocessor unit (MPU) of the mobile unit. The delivery order of these general informational messages may be pre-specified, random, or causal. An example of causal delivery order is time-dependent delivery of information. In this case the mobile unit""s MPU is programmed to monitor the unit""s internal clock. For example, when lunch time is approaching and no modulation pattern has been identified for a specific period of time, the unit delivers to the user information about dining facilities near the area-of-interest covered by the system.
The invention provides the user with control over the stream of information delivered to him or her. During the playback of an information file the user can repeat, restart, skip-back or pause the playback process through corresponding keys located on an enclosure of the mobile unit. These keys relay the users"" wishes to the MPU, which in turn directs the storage device to access and deliver the information stored in the appropriate segment of the file.
The invention further provides the user with extended control over the material of a custom-print book to be printed after the tour, if the user so chooses. During the tour the user relays to the system information about his or her level of interest relative to each point-of-interest observed. The system uses this information to determine how much material regarding each point-of-interest to include in the custom-print book.
The system delivers to users tour information in any language desired. This is accomplished by use of an audio CD, flash memory, flash memory cards or removable hard drives. Upon receipt of the mobile unit the user selects the language in which he or she wishes to receive the information. The mobile unit""s MPU is programmed accordingly to use a look-up table whose entries indicate information files in the user""s chosen language, thus causing the unit to deliver the information streams in that language. Alternatively, the mobile unit only stores one language at a time, and upon the user""s designation of a desired language, the correct CD or other device is inserted into the unit to cause the information to be delivered in that language. In yet another embodiment, after the user designates a language, the device is coupled to the main server and files in the designated language are downloaded onto a writable storage device such as a hard disk of the mobile unit.
As noted, all the information dispensed to the user during the tour resides on the storage medium of the mobile unit. This feature of the invention keeps bandwidth requirements to a minimum and makes the system robust. Further, the system employs as building blocks components of well-entrenched technologies, resulting in low manufacturing costs. These and other aspects of the invention will be apparent from and elucidated with reference to the embodiments described hereinafter.
Although the invention is described as applied in an automatic tour system, it is useful in any application where location-dependent automatic delivery of information is beneficial.